When I was young I used to read more than now, I remember that I asked my parents to buy me a collection of books made for kids (with drawings and all) that were published with "La Tercera", it was a collection of classics of the universal literature like Moby Dick, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea, Journey to the Center of the Earth or Robinson Crusoe, I enjoyed the full collection that had like 30 books. Now I read books from time to time, generally when I'm on vacations, when there's a lot of time to read.
I often enjoy reading books that have something that you can't find in the real world or in the day to day, like strange creatures or space travels for example, so my favourite genres are Realismo Magico, Science Fiction and Horror. That being said my favourite writers are Gabriel García Marquez, H.P. Lovecraft and Ray Bradbury, I would add Juan Rulfo, but I haven't read many books from him, in fact, I've only read one: Pedro Páramo, but it's one of my favourite books ever, along with one of each author that I've mentioned: 100 Años de Soledad from Marquez, The Call of Cthulhu from Lovecraft and The Martian Chronicles from Bradbury. My favourite character from literature is José Arcadio Buendía, the patriarch of the Buendía family and founder of Macondo from 100 Años de Soledad.
The last "book" that I've read isn't exactly a book, but a comic book called "zombies en la moneda", it's a book with many little stories from various authors involving a zombie outbreak in Santiago, the stories are varied, since some are pretty funny and mock chilean characters and people from the t.v. and politicians, and some are mysterious and serious. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to read a light book.
Incas Sacrifices
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Why the Incas offered up child sacrifices, by Kim MacQuarrie, The Observer, Sunday 4 August 2013:
It starts talking about the Inca Empire, an ethnic group that is estimated to have reached close to 100.000 individuals, becoming the largest native empire in America. The article also notes that it is an accomplishment, because they lived in a pretty harsh environment with cold temperatures and bad weather owing to the heights of Andes, a very large chain of mountains that for example reach even 8.000 ft. of altitude in Machu Pichu.
It's also said in the article that the Incas built an empire, and makes a parallel between them and the Romans, because they imposed their language to the other etnies that were part of them, also they borrowed a lot of things from previous cultures.
Because of have been a powerful and big empire, it makes sense questioning about why they performed sacrifices. According to the author this is explained by the reciprocity principle in which they believed, they had a social system that replied according the situations: if a part of the empire was lacking food and supplies, the other parts of them sent their excedents in order to help them. This was an important principle in their beliefs too, the relations that they established with their gods was based in this, and in order to reach that reciprocity they performed the sacrificial ceremonies, hoping that the gods were more kind and give them better weather and in general better climatic conditions, including the earthquakes that are so common in these lands.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
I understand that anime is japanese cartoons, but I don't know if there is any more accurate definition of it.
One of the animes that I have liked the most it's Samurai X, or Rurouni Kenshin in Japanese, It was themed in the late 19th century, and the beginning of the 20th, those were the last days of the samurais, and it was a period for changes in Japan, in which they began to have more contact with occident. I like it because it portraits very well a time period that sounds interesting, the clash of two worlds pretty distant between them, in one side you have all the way of the samurai, and the traditions associated to them, and in the other you have all the "progress". The anime it's focused on the life of a former assassin, Kenshin, that chooses another kind of life, away from all the violence, so he stays in the house of a woman named Kaoru, after he helps her defending his swordsmanship school. In there he will meet new friends, as his old enemies cross paths with him, but also there will be new ones that will challenge him.
What I like from anime is the aspects from their culture that they put in them, you can see various elements like samurais, or magical creatures from their myths, as you can see normal people in a certain time periods that are really trustworthy, and transport you to that time.
Anime hasn't influenced me in anyway, but I found curious that after watching any anime, some people become pretty fascinated with the Japanese culture and begin to listening their music, dressing like them, or dressing up like the characters from anime series. I haven't bought any original soundtrack from animes, but sometimes I listen in youtube some of the songs from animes that I've watched.
The first anime that I remember was Dragon Ball Z, I also remember that I enjoyed it a lot. The story was about the adventures of a group of martial arts fighters from all around the earth, and even other planets, in fact, the main character was Goku, an extraterrestrial man from an outer space warrior race that was pretty eccentric and loved to eat lots and lots of food, but it was pretty humble.
One of the animes that I have liked the most it's Samurai X, or Rurouni Kenshin in Japanese, It was themed in the late 19th century, and the beginning of the 20th, those were the last days of the samurais, and it was a period for changes in Japan, in which they began to have more contact with occident. I like it because it portraits very well a time period that sounds interesting, the clash of two worlds pretty distant between them, in one side you have all the way of the samurai, and the traditions associated to them, and in the other you have all the "progress". The anime it's focused on the life of a former assassin, Kenshin, that chooses another kind of life, away from all the violence, so he stays in the house of a woman named Kaoru, after he helps her defending his swordsmanship school. In there he will meet new friends, as his old enemies cross paths with him, but also there will be new ones that will challenge him.
What I like from anime is the aspects from their culture that they put in them, you can see various elements like samurais, or magical creatures from their myths, as you can see normal people in a certain time periods that are really trustworthy, and transport you to that time.
Anime hasn't influenced me in anyway, but I found curious that after watching any anime, some people become pretty fascinated with the Japanese culture and begin to listening their music, dressing like them, or dressing up like the characters from anime series. I haven't bought any original soundtrack from animes, but sometimes I listen in youtube some of the songs from animes that I've watched.
The first anime that I remember was Dragon Ball Z, I also remember that I enjoyed it a lot. The story was about the adventures of a group of martial arts fighters from all around the earth, and even other planets, in fact, the main character was Goku, an extraterrestrial man from an outer space warrior race that was pretty eccentric and loved to eat lots and lots of food, but it was pretty humble.
New Zealand
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Hi, today I'm going to talk about a country that I would like to visit.
I would like to begin my post telling that I like the countries that are kind of exotic, with vegetation and with animals that aren't in my own country, if they have beaches better! or if they have mountains too. That being said I also like the European countries that have the alps. In fact it could be said that I would like to visit various countries because I love to travel and meeting new people and having new experiences.
I would choose one country of the many that I want to visit I would say that New Zealand. One of the main reasons of it is because it has such gorgeous landscapes, it also has two things that I said before: beaches and mountains, along with lots of forests full of green. The mountains are big enough to make a beautiful postcard and they are covered with snow. The country is in an island, so it has lots of water and beaches, and because of it, its a pretty good place to practice surfing (and in the mountains snowboard). Travelling to various landscapes and the activities that you can realize in them, like the two sports that I mentioned, are some of the things that I would like to do there, also, because of the Maori that live there, I would be visiting the museums about them and the communities that remains of this ethnic group.
I don't know much about the history of the country, but I know that it was a colony of the British Empire in the nineteenth century, and then It became a dominion of the British, even though the parliament of the British can't legislate the country. New Zealand it's also part of the Commonwealth of Nations, and intergovernmental organisation that it's formed mostly of ex colonies of the British Empire. The country has an ethnic group: the Maoris, a polinesic ethnic that it's known for its aggressiveness towards the various clans that composes itself.
In a future I would like to study there, maybe have a semester or more, and if it's not so drastic the change, I would like to live there because it's definitely a beautiful place, it has a very interesting culture, that an anthropologist (or future anthropologist) could study, and why not to stay in Chile? because I don't want to stay in only one place for the rest of my life.
Television time!
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Hello everyone, today I feel like talking about the television.
In general I think that the television is a powerful tool that has an important place in today's
society. It can be used to bring people together for a cause like the Teletón, a big tv special that lasts two days, in which the people donates money for the handicapped people, and the main goal is to reach a certain amount of money. But it also can be a bad element when it is used in the wrong way, one example of this is the omission of information, or the lies that are frequently used in the news broadcasts to keep the people uninformed or preoccupied of less important things like football, instead of the real problems of the education.
I don't like chilean tv, I actually hate it, because it's frivolous and full of things that in my opinion are stupid, like the entertainment world, for an example there are five open channels, and they all have their own program dedicated to the show business, this I consider that is too much, and the people actually see them. Another thing that I already have talked a little about it are the news programmes, they are so bad, because they often lie to the people, they show a reality that is not true, and they don't even show real news sometimes, they are full with macabre and morbid news about accidents, dead people and assassinations, "sports" news that are a 90% about football, and that make about the 50% of the program, and they ALWAYS repeat the same "news" in certain dates like Halloween, Christmas and March (back to school and university).
I would improve the Chilean TV adding more cultural programs like "Tierra Adentro" or "Recomiendo Chile", or even foreign documentaries like "Man vs. Wild" (documentaries like this, not this), I would reform the news programs and add more quality series like "Dr. House", "Breaking Bad" or "Profugos", to give time to the local producers to make good series.
My favourite TV series was Dr. House, because Hugh Laurie and company were an incredibly good team of actors and actresses, I loved the character of Gregory House, his attitude and his great knowledge of strange diseases and illness, and I was often surpised because the sometimes rough moral decisions that came up in the process of trying to diagnose the diseases.
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